The Minister of Education says a new policy that bans vaping on school properties was the idea of local students in Windsor-Essex.
Stephen Lecce says the idea to implement this ban came from student trustees locally two years ago during a roundtable discussion.
Lecce announced on Sunday that the province will be limiting cellphone use in classrooms, restricting access to all social media networks and banning vaping on school properties starting in the fall.
If students are caught using or carrying vapes or cigarettes they will be surrendered and parents will be notified immediately.
The government also officially announced $30-million in the 2024 Budget to install vape detectors and other security upgrades in schools.
Speaking on AM800's The Shift, Lecce says the local student trustees stepped up.
"Two years ago in Windsor and across Essex, the whole region, we had a wonderful group of young trustees come out from the English, and Catholic, and French boards, and they actually helped give advice on how to change vaping in schools."
He says it was a cool concept that came from the students.
"The recommendation to call the parents, to surrender the vape, to support addiction services, that came from students in your community when I was with Andrew Dowie, and later that day with Anthony Leardi, and I thought what a really cool concept to give a voice to young people to be part of this solution."
Lecce says Windsor led the way for this initiative.
"I'm proud of them because they really answered a simple question, 'what would change your behaviour?', and they said 'you call my parent, you take away the vape, and you engage local public health and others to help support the child'. And I thought that was a really balanced approach and we adopted it.")
In order to support these initiatives, the government is investing $17.5-million in new wrap-around supports for student mental health and parent engagement.
This funding will go towards supports for students at risk of addictive behaviours, the development of webinars and resources targeted to parents and students to learn the effects of vaping, and funding for local prevention campaigns to help deter vaping.